10.24.2005

You gotta be kidding

A CBS poll says that a majority on Americans don't believe in evolution.

The three options for this poll were:

1. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process 2. Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, but God guided this process3. God created human beings in their present form (they later added "within the last 10,000 years" and got the same results)

51% chose number three. My answer would be number one because evolution is so unimaginably impossible to ignore that I don't know where to start. You can look at fossils or early humans or of billions of other animal and plant life or you can look at the evolution of TB in Russian prisons or even the "bird flu" that's in all the newspapers. Evolution is here to stay.

That doesn't mean there is no God. Number one only says that evolution has been happening and, if you believe in God, He has just let it happen without actively making a species magically change in a certain way. I think that's obvious. There is no indication that evolution has taken place out of the blue by "magic". Maybe He even started evolution, but He just let it run on it's own. I would think an all powerful God would be able to design the system of evolution without having to tweak it down the road wouldn't he?

But 51 percent chose nmber three. It is extremely difficult for me to believe that here in one the most advanced, industralized, educated and scientifically oriented nations in the world, people find it possible to deny that humans are more than 10,000 years old.